


i hang my hopes out on the line

by subwaycars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaycars/pseuds/subwaycars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie accidentally stumbles into a hunt and Tamara. They (sorta accidentally) get coffee after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i hang my hopes out on the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyryk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyryk/gifts).



> I haven't kept up with this season so there's a chance it isn't totally canon compliant.

Charlie kicks the ghoul in the face. It seems like the thing to do.

Then she runs. She’s seen enough genre television to know she’s the pre-credits opening scene, and she’d like to come out of this as the slightly traumatized but wholly alive bit character instead of the body Mulder and Scully examine a week later.

Knowing her luck, she wouldn’t even get Scully. She’d get Sam and Dean.  

She’d sigh, but she’s too busy running for her life.

This is what she gets for pulling over at the rest stop instead of just holding it until the next town. She should have known better, really. She’s been hunting for long enough. It’s like the cardinal rule of hunting; if it looks like a horror movie set, it’s probably inhibited by something supernatural.

Now she’s running away from her car and all her weaponry, into what is thankfully only a moderately populated wood. She can’t hear the ghoul behind her, but she’s sure it’s still there. Charlie doesn’t actually have much of a game plan beyond running but she’ll figure it out. If she’s lucky, she can double back without getting caught and find something to chop the bastard’s head off.

She chances a quick glance backwards, which is, of course, when she runs into something. They go down hard. Charlie just hopes it’s not Mr. Creepy and Supernatural.

Surprisingly, it isn’t. What it is is soft and warm and distinctively female, and Charlie’s got about a half-second to appreciate that before she’s being flipped over.

“Ow, fuck fuck, I think you broke my chest,” she says, winded, and gets a really long and really sharp knife to her throat for it. Charlie stills as best she can, tries to look as non-threatening as possible. It shouldn’t be that hard. She’s wearing mustard yellow pants and her Lying Cat t-shirt, for crying out loud.

The women doesn’t look convinced. “Whoops,” she says, pressing the knife in harder. She’s got a British accent. Charlie should not be as into it as she is.

There’s a sudden movement to their left, Mr. Ghoul finally making his reappearance.

“Behind you,” Charlie manages, but the women’s already moving off her. She’s on her feet in less than a second, swinging her arm out like something out of the Walking Dead or maybe Game of Thrones. The ghoul’s head makes a wet sort of sound as it falls to the ground, the rest of the body collapsing a moment later. It’s really rather impressive.

Charlie would appreciate it all a lot more if it hadn’t resulted in a nice arc of blood splattering her from head to toe.

She coughs weakly. “Well, that was fun.”

Badass and British snorts. She’s wiping down her blade, not looking at Charlie. Charlie takes the opportunity to struggle to her feet and wipe as much blood as she can out of her eyes.

“So, I’m just going to go,” Charlie says finally, taking a small step back towards where her car should be. Normally, she’d stay and chat and all, but she’s got places to go and people to see and blood to clean off. _So_ much blood.

Tall, Dark and Gorgeous raises an eyebrow at her. “You aren’t going to freak out on me?”

Charlie shrugs. “It’s cool, really. We can just pretend this never happened and I can get into my car and get the fuck out of dodge. Really. It’s fine.”

She takes another step back, and then another. The woman doesn’t say anything and doesn’t try to stop her, so Charlie takes it as her cue to leave. She feels a little bad about it -graves are not fun to dig alone- but Charlie would just really like to not be here right now.

It’s a quicker walk to her car than she expects, and she fishes out the napkins from the center console and a set of clean clothes from her duffle. She thinks about heading back towards the bathrooms for a minute. There probably aren’t any more ghouls lingering about, after all. It’s dark and no one else is around though, and it feels much safer by her car.

She strips out of her shirt instead, tries to wipe up as much blood as she can. It’s starting to get tacky, which is properly gross. The whole thing just seemed much cooler in videogames when she didn’t have to _smell_ it.

She pulls on the new shirt when she feels clean again. She’s probably missed a spot or nine, but her skin no longer looks red and that’s good enough for her. The pants take another minute to change out of, and then Charlie is tossing her bloodied clothing in the nearest trash. They’re a lost cause at this point, which Charlie’s honestly a bit sad about. That was her favorite shirt.

She’ll just have to buy a new one, she decides and gets into her car. It’s only a couple more hours to Kansas.

\---

Charlie pulls over twenty minutes later.

The funny thing about running for your life is that it tends to make you forget certain things. Like how badly you need to pee.

She’s in a town now, at least, and this time she’s parking in front of a brightly lit diner, and not just some empty parking lot. Besides, she could use some food.

She slips into the bathroom to take care of business, and makes sure she washes her hands as thoroughly as possible. There’s definitely blood still in her hair but there’s not much she can do about that at this point.

When she comes back out, the woman from earlier is waiting in front of the podium.

“Oh,” Charlie says, stumbles maybe a little. She’s much hotter in the light, which is actually pretty impressive, seeing as how universally unflattering it looks on everyone else.

“Oh,” the woman echoes, dry. Charlie can’t quite decide if she’s being laughed at or not, but she’s leaning more towards the former. 

A tired waitress bustles up before Charlie can say anything else. “Table for two?”

The woman looks like she’s going to say no, _Charlie_ is going to say no, so she really can’t explain why she says, “Sure.” The company would be nice though.

The woman raises an eyebrow, but goes along with it. Charlie tries not to grin.

“I thought you wanted to forget it ever happened?” she says when the waitress has left to get them both coffee.

Charlie shrugs. “I did. Now I just want coffee. I’m Charlie, by the way.”

There’s a beat before the woman smiles. “Tamara,” she says, which is good. Charlie was getting sick of referring to her as variations the woman in her head. Their waitress comes back with their coffee and Charlie rattles off a quick order of pancakes and pie. Tamara doesn’t get anything else.

“So, you from England then?” Charlie asks, when the waitress is gone again.

“Yes,” Tamara says and nothing else. Charlie rolls her eyes. Hunters can be so closemouthed, it’s ridiculous.

“And you’re hunting alone?”

Tamara looks surprised for a moment, before her face does something, something sad that Charlie maybe knows.

“Used to. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says, and she means it.

Tamara waves it off. “It’s been years now,” she says, like that changes loss.

“And you still do it?” Charlie asks before she can stop herself. Tamara smiles, but it still looks sad.

“What else can you do?” she says. “Once you get into this life you either grow old in it or it kills you. There’s no getting out.”

Charlie thinks about how many times she’s nearly died since she met Sam and Dean, the time she _did_. She thinks about the bag of weapons she keeps in her trunk. Tamara’s not wrong.

Charlie’s food comes, and she busies herself for a moment with just cutting up her pancakes, drenching them in syrup. Tamara takes a long sip of her coffee.

“What were you doing out there anyway? You weren’t hunting,” Tamara says and Charlie laughs around the pancakes in her mouth.

“Honestly, I was just trying to pee,” she says. Tamara gives her an incredulous look, before laughing, soft and clear. Her head tips back a little, her jaw sharp and strong. Charlie does her best not to stare. She takes another bite.

“The ghoul was a surprise, not going to lie. I seem to stumble into more hunts than I search out,” she says. “I’m starting to feel like Bilbo Baggins.”

Tamara tilts her head. “The Hobbit? You a fan?”

Charlie smiles, tries not to feel sad.  “I’ve probably read it over a dozen times,” she admits. Tamara looks at her like she maybe understands but she doesn’t ask. Charlie appreciates that.

“I probably read all of Tolkien when I was a kid,” Tamara says. She reaches out, steals a bite of pancake. She licks syrup off her fingers. Charlie ignores it.

“Me too,” she says. “Those and the Narnia books.”

“Harry Potter?”

Charlie laughs. “Of course. I mean, Hermione Granger? My idol.”

Tamara smiles wider. It makes her eyes crinkle a little. She says, “What else have you read?”

“Everything, it seems like. The Oz books, most recently,” Charlie says. It’s half a lie and half not. For a minute she misses it, Oz. It’s nice to be home though, all the same.

“Never read them,” Tamara says and Charlie frowns.

“We’ll have to remedy that,” she says, popping the last bite of pancake into her mouth. “I’ll let you borrow them for Christmas.”

Their waitress is refilling their coffee mugs and sliding a slice of pie onto the table within a minute of Charlie shoving her empty plate away. She sets two forks down next to it, and the check.

“Thanks,” Charlie says. She shoves a fork at Tamara, who takes it without hesitation. 

Pie. The weakness of hunters everywhere.

They demolish the slice within minutes. Charlie is almost tempted to order a second, as full as she is. She sips the last of her coffee instead.

They're quiet for a moment.

“So I take it you aren’t heading home for the holidays?” Charlie asks, finally. It’s late, almost too late, and Charlie still has hours to go. She should leave, but she doesn’t want to, not quite yet at least.

Tamara laughs. “No. You?”

Charlie shrugs. “Don’t have much of one anymore.” She sets her mug down, hesitates for just a second. “I’ve got a couple of friends though? They’re totally hopeless. Weren’t planning on celebrating or anything. I figured, fuck that, you know, I’ll get a tofurkey and we’ll do it right. Dean wasn’t pleased about the fake meat but I think he was more excited than he’d admit about the rest of it. You should come?”

“Dean?” Tamara asks. Her eyes narrow. “As in Dean and Sam? The Winchesters?”

“You know them?” Charlie says, and she should probably stop being surprised by that. Sure not every hunter knows every hunter, as small and tight-knit a group as they tend to be, but everyone knows the Winchesters.

“Unfortunately,” Tamara says, her smile sharp.

“Ah," Charlie says. "No on the invite, then?” She isn’t disappointed, she _isn’t_.

Tamara laughs though. “No, you know what. I think I’ll come. It could be interesting,” she says. “Besides, you promised me books.”

"Well in that case," Charlie says and grins. She slides out of the booth, tossing enough money down to cover the bill and then some.

“Shall we?” she says and holds out her hand. Tamara takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for being the kid who posts at the very last second. I really enjoyed writing this though! I never thought about Charlie and Tamara before I got this assignment but I totally dig it. I hope you enjoyed it and happy holidays :)
> 
> Thanks to glovered and specialrhino for all their help with this fic.
> 
> Title from Going in for the Kill by La Roux.


End file.
